As announced last year, we have been hard at work completing the first phase of the construction of our new church. We are very happy to announce that, with the help of God, we have completed Phase One of the construction process, namely, all the infrastructure repairs and improvements necessary for the new church to be built.
Over the past year, we have rerouted all the utility lines which previously ran underneath the construction site, upgraded the water drainage system to prevent the extensive flooding which until now had regularly occurred there after heavy rains, and completed the new land bridge which will become the main roadway through the monastery once excavation begins. Most importantly, we have completely rebuilt the large rock retaining wall behind the site of the new church, which had been in the process of failing for many years.
With these necessary tasks accomplished, we now hope to break ground and pour the foundation for the new church this spring, and to continue on with construction as rapidly as funding permits. Currently, we have raised over $800,000 in addition to the money we have set aside from our own business, but we still have a long way to go since our project budget remains at $2.5 million. We are in negotiations with a general contractor who could potentially complete the work by the end of this year, but the limiting factor is now financial.
Please continue to pray for the successful completion of this work, which is so vital for the monks, the pilgrims, and the entire future of our monastery, and prayerfully consider supporting us financially as well. Donations can be submitted below:
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UPDATE 2pm: we have once again lost power, perhaps due to the massive flooding that has occurred over the past two days.
Glory to God, the monastery finally had its power restored this past weekend after an outage of nearly two weeks following the severe ice storm of Feb 15th. However, phones and internet service are still down and the divine services are therefore unable to be live-streamed. Business operations have resumed, but we are severely backlogged and stock levels are sorely depleted since production was largely halted during the two weeks of the power outage.
Dn. Simeon Siskar
March 16, 2020
The construction looks exciting. You should eventually post before and after photos.